Her family surrendered her after 10 years. She’d once been shot in the shoulder. She was terrified of other dogs. She’d been through a lot of chaos, and her rescuers were hoping to find her a home where she could live out her golden years in peace.
Around the same time, Cole Reifsnider was debating adopting a dog. She thought she wanted a puppy, but then she started thinking a senior dog could be the right option, and that’s how she found Alison.
“I had no idea I was capable of loving something with my whole being until I got her,” Reifsnider said.
Even though Alison was a senior pup, she still loved taking short walks outside. So, her mom used an app called Rover to find a local dog walker to take Alison out when she couldn’t.
That’s how they met Seth. He was hired to take Alison on short walks and hang out with her for 30 minutes at a time.
And it didn’t take long for Seth to fall in love with Alison, too.
“Seth would spend anywhere from two to five hours with Alison,” Reifsnider said. “Not only did he just take her out, but he would go to the roof and hang out with her up there to make sure she got some sun. He would lay on the floor with her to pet her, and some days, he would share his lunch with her too! It made her day and his day.”
Seth loved Alison just as much as her mom did — and when it came time to say goodbye, Reifsnider knew Seth would want to be there.
“Seth’s last walk with Alison was on Thursday,” Reifsnider said. “However, on Thursday night when I started to worry about Alison, I immediately told Seth and I kept him updated while at the vet on Friday. When I told Seth that we would be putting Alison down at 4:30 p.m,. he told me he had an exam at 2 p.m., but he would be there, and he was. He finished his exam and rushed over to meet me outside of the vet and say his final goodbye to Alison.”
After two years in her forever home, Alison passed away peacefully surrounded by the people she loved. Afterward, full of grief, Seth wrote Alison’s final review on Rover — and it was the sweetest, most touching tribute ever written.
Reifsnider sobbed when she read Seth’s review. Alison was gone, but all the people she’d touched would help to keep her memory alive forever.
“He absolutely adored Alison, and she adored him back,” Reifsnider said. “He captured her soooo perfectly in his short paragraphs. My relationship with Alison was once in a lifetime, but so was his with her.”